Chelsea win at Arsenal, Liverpool win at last

Arsenal's Gervinho (L) shoots and scores his goal against Chelsea during their English Premier League soccer match at the Emirates Stadium in London September 29, 2012.

Reuters/Eddie Keogh

LONDON Premier League leaders Chelsea beat London rivals Arsenal 2-1 with goals from Spaniards Fernando Torres and Juan Mata on Saturday to maintain their unbeaten start to the season while handing Arsenal their first defeat.

Liverpool recorded their first league win at the sixth attempt with an emphatic 5-2 victory at Norwich City with Luis Suarez scoring a hat-trick after also scoring three at Carrow Road in April.

Nuri Sahin and Steven Gerrard scored Liverpool's other goals.

Champions Manchester City, without a win in any competition for four games, came from behind to win 2-1 at Fulham with a late winner from substitute Edin Dzeko only a minute after coming on.

Everton maintained their good start to the campaign, coming from behind to beat Southampton 3-1 with all their three goals coming in 13 first-half minutes with Nikica Jelavic scoring twice.

They moved into second place behind Chelsea at least until Manchester United, who started the day in second place, play Tottenham Hotspur at Old Trafford in the 1630 GMT kickoff.

In the other games, Stoke City won for the first time this season and sent Swansea City to a third successive defeat with Peter Crouch scoring both in their 2-0 win on his 500th league appearance.

Sunderland also won for the first time this season after four straight draws with Steven Fletcher, the only player to score for them in the league so far, grabbing the winner in their 1-0 win over Wigan Athletic who had Jordi Gomez sent off.

Reading were denied their first win after going 2-1 up against Newcastle United when Demba Ba appeared to secure the equaliser and his second goal in a 2-2 draw with his arm.

Reading climbed one place off the bottom to 19th while Queens Park Rangers, who play West Ham on Monday, slipped to last.

NO DOUBTS

There was no doubting the legality of either of Chelsea's goals from Torres and Mata.

Both came as a result of Mata free kicks and poor Arsenal defending with Torres out-muscling Laurent Koscielny to volley the European champions ahead after 20 minutes for his third league goal of the season.

Gervinho equalised for Arsenal three minutes before the break when he turned crisply and fired into the roof of the net for his fourth goal of the campaign.

Chelsea, who started with skipper John Terry as he mulls an appeal over a four-game ban for racist abuse, went back in front after 53 minutes when Mata's free kick eluded everyone before clipping Koscielny and flying in past stand-in keeper Vito Mannone.

Chelsea manager Roberto Di Matteo told Sky Sports: "I thought we were excellent today and deservedly won the game. From the start to the end we never defended too deep, we tried to take the initiative and go forward and create chances and the game went for us today."

Disappointed Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said: "We were a bit nervous at the start ... But we should never have lost this game.

"It is sad because we gave the game away at home, we conceded two soft goals on set pieces. They had three shots on target and scored two goals and you cannot concede goals at home like we did today. We gave a lot and the least we deserved was a draw."

LIVERPOOL WIN

Liverpool, making their worst start to a league season for 101 years, finally won for the first time after coach Brendan Rodgers fielded a young side including teenagers Suso, Raheem Sterling and Andre Wisdom.

But it was old campaigner Suarez who showed them all the way with a second hat-trick at Carrow Road after scoring all the goals in Liverpool's 3-0 win there last April.

Norwich were booed off at halftime but rallied with replies from Steve Morison and Grant Holt but the defeat left them in 18th place.

Manchester City also won away but were made to come from behind at Craven Cottage where Fulham went ahead through a Mladen Petric penalty after 10 minutes.

Sergio Aguero equalised just before the break before Dzeko wrapped up the points with an 87th minute winner to lift City into fourth place.

"It was difficult for us to respond as it wasn't a penalty," City manager Roberto Mancini told Sky.

"But the guys played very well and continued to play football. We had a lot of chances but had to wait till the last three minutes to take one."

(Reporting by Mike Collett; Editing by Mark Meadows)

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